A premonition of WWII?

[Clive Maier]

I recently uploaded this image of the Knockholt memorial to the gallery but I have only now realised that there is something remarkable about the memorial.

All the names of the Great War dead are incised on the left-hand side of the memorial as you face the bas relief. All the WWII names are on the right-hand side. It seems extraordinary to me that the designers left that side blank instead of distributing the Great War names equally between both sides. Did they have a premonition of further conflict? In the immediate aftermath of the war, when memorials were being built, it is my impression that people still believed it had been the war to end wars. They almost had to believe that, to justify the appalling level of death and injury.

It is possible that the names were originally distributed between both sides and that they were cut back and re-engraved after WWII. Against that, the WWI side looks distinctly older and more weathered than the other side. I suppose that could be due to a chance alignment to prevailing weather. The WWII names on every other memorial I can remember looking at, have clearly been shoehorned into unplanned space or placed on later additions.

Any ideas Pals?

[christine liava'a]

When was it erected?

[Clive Maier]

I don’t know, Christine. I see your point. The memorial certainly looks much older than a WWII construction. And the bas relief depicts a WWI figure.

PS

The inscription below the bas relief refers only to the Great War of 1914-1918, so I think it is odds on that the memorial was erected in the early 1920s.

Edited 29 June , 2004 by Clive Maier

[SteveE]

Is it possible that when first erected the memorial had no names inscribed at all?

Both sets being subsequently added after WWII.

[Clive Maier]

That's a great idea and may be the answer. But if so, I would expect the style of the two sides to be exactly the same. In fact they differ. The WWI side has no heading at all; just names. The WWII side is headed WORLD WAR 1939 - 1945, followed by the names.

[AndyHollinger]

In the US many of the county memorials were retro-fitted to include WWII, which happened so quickly after the first .... if they had room you can also find Korea and Viet Nam on many ...

[Terry Denham]

It is possible that the intention was to fill both left and right sides with WW1 names when the memorial was designed. The memorial could have been designed prior to the list of names being completed.

However, when it came to the engraving, they then found that the list was not as long as envisaged and kept them together for asthetic reasons rather than have a few on each side.

Alternatively, perhaps they intended the list to go on the rear and the mason made a mistake. It has happened!

Also, is this a 'stock' design of memorial intended for use in several areas with different numbers of names?

[Clive Maier]

All good suggestions Terry but I don’t feel entirely convinced. Knockholt is a very small village and they would have had a clear idea of the numbers of their dead and missing. I think it could only have happened as you suggest if most of Knockholt’s missing had come home. But as we know, in general most of the missing had eventually to be presumed dead. Maybe they thought of listing those who served and survived on the other side but found there were too many.

The blunder theory is always a possibility and accounts for much in history. I am fairly sure by observation that the memorial at Southborough was assembled wrongly.

I am very interested in the concept of stock memorial designs. It is something I want to research. I started a thread on this when I first came on the forum, but no hard evidence of stock designs emerged. As far as I know, the Knockholt memorial was custom built. Although I have no evidence at the moment, it seems quite likely that stock components would have been offered for incorporation into custom constructions. So for example, the bas relief panel could have been a stock item while the rest of the Knockholt memorial was custom monumental masonry.

As Andy Hollinger mentions, most Great War memorials were pressed into service for WWII as well. The new names were added in any remaining space, or on new tablets and panels, and sometimes both. What’s unique about the Knockholt memorial in my very limited experience is that there was lots of space available for WWII names and that this space existed in a way that made the memorial markedly asymmetric for – at a guess – some 25 to 30 years.